What happened to Duckhams Q motor oil?

Remember Duckhams oil? The Duckhams name was synonymous with engine oil when I was growing up. I remember garages having large Duckhams Q branded thermometers screwed to their walls.

Duckhams Q, a 20W50 multigrade oil, was the best known of the Duckams brands. As oils became more sophisticated Duckhams Hypergrade came along.

And then Duckhams seemed to disapear!

What happened to Duckhams Q?

It would seem the original Duckhams oil company was bought out by the oil and petrol giant BP. Duckhams was for a while promoted by BP as a premium engine oil brand.

In 2000 BP acquired Burmah-Castrol and along with it the Castrol oil brand. Castrol is most famous for Castrol GTX, Castrol Edge and Castrol Magnatec.

BP must have considered the Castrol brand stronger than Duckhams. The let the once great Duckhams name fall by the wayside.

So there is no more Duckhams?

Browsing Ebay a while back I came across Duckhams oil on sale. What was going on? Was this old stock? Had someone bought the Duckhams brand?

All I could find on Google was a Duckhams web site based in Thailand (www.duckhams.co.th). Being in Thai I obviously cannot read the text, but there are pictures of cans of oil. There are old favourites such as Duckhams Hypergrade and Duckhams QXR, and yes, Duckhams Q. Could this be the source of the Ebay oil? Who knows?

I think it is obvious we will not see Duckhams on the shelf a Halfords or Eurocarparts again. But there are plenty of alternatives.